“Get up here Farmer Jerry!” James Anderson, MPT, and I had sorta bonded over the first two hours of the PRI Integration for Baseball course. We were two of the three people attending the classes who grew up in rural areas – hence the nickname Farmer Jerry. But now this was getting real and I was regretting my decision to sit front-and-center. James was calling me up to be assessed for asymmetry using four PRI tests. I got on the examination table in front of the class fully confident of how this was going to turn out. I had been introduced to PRI concepts a year ago, and since then had tried to learn as much as I could on the subject. Alas, James took me through the four tests and BOOM! I am left AIC, right BC. Textbook asymmetrical human being. Then the fun started. James grabbed a harmless balloon. “Let’s have you blow up this balloon Farmer Jerry!” Some cueing, some guided emphasis to my left lower back, some more cueing, “EXHALE JERRY! EXHALE JERRY!” three breathes and I was done. Retest and BOOM! No more asymmetries. This stuff is legit.***What is PRI? The basis of Postural Restoration Institute is that the human body is asymmetrical. Whether it is neurological, respiratory, circulatory, or muscular the left side of the body is not the mirror image of the right. That’s just the way we are made. Fine and dandy, except this asymmetry can lead to some ingrained imbalances in our bodies. While these imbalances are “normal”, they can lead to structural weakness, pain, and decreased performance. Even worse, for high level athletes, imbalance on-top-of imbalance can start to occur – greatly increasing injury risk. The most common imbalance seen (on virtually everyone) is left anterior-interior chain, right brachial chain – or left AIC, right BC in PRI lingo. Basically due to our asymmetry in our respiratory system, our pelvis can become tipped and rotated in all three planes. Ever notice how it is easier to stand for a while with your right foot (and hip) back and front foot (and hip) forward? That’s left AIC working. Because how the pelvis gets tilted, our thorax has to make a corresponding correction. Our left thorax flares up and rotates to the left. That’s right BC. Show us the finished product Greg Robbins.

Look familiar? It does for me. And that’s why I knew I was in for a treat up on the table. (The next day James would explain that he didn’t call me up because of our rural connection, but rather he spotted my left AIC pattern.) Why is this important for Baseball? You may be thinking, “That’s great stuff. Better breathing. Better posture. That’s great for the general population, but I have to make baseball players!” Well, the concepts are pretty important. For instance, one of the tests that I flunked was shoulder internal rotation – something pretty important for pitchers to be able to achieve for deceleration. After 20 seconds of breathing I was able to obtain 30 more degrees of IR. Maybe blowing up the balloon will keep my shoulder from flaring up after throwing batting practice. James and Allen Gruver, PT, led us through how these imbalances can lead to difficulty achieving movements. When Allen explained to us that often coaches ask players to perform a movement they simply CAN’T do because of their heavily ingrained patterns, it really struck home with me. As the course went on and we learned how people with certain patterns have difficulty doing certain movements, I found myself slapping my face thinking “I bet that’s why Johnny struggled learning that” over and over and over. But, as Allen constantly reminded us, I have to test to know for sure. As I mentioned, high level athletes will find a way to get the job done, ingrained imbalanced pattern or not. To complete the task, athletes will develop compensatory patterns to achieve the goal, often stacking pattern on-top-of pattern and heightening injury risk. Allen took us through tons of slow motion clips showing compensatory patterns, and many of the athletes had indeed suffered serious injuries. (We even saw how Mike Trout could probably turn off his rear adductor a little better. Who knew?)What did I take away from the course? I definitely learned a lot in the course, but I thought I would mention a few highlights.1. Appreciation for the thorax. Read my articles, watch my videos. You will see me mention the pelvis, hips, thoracic spine, quads, supinator, you name it. I can guarantee I have never mentioned the thorax. That will change. 2. The relationship of hitting/throwing to gait. We spent a lot of time on just plain-old walking. And believe me it was worth it. James and Allen view hitting throwing as just an extension of walking. If you understand the correct mechanics of walking, a lot of the confusion of what is happening in hitting and throwing starts to fall away. A few other attendees in the course I spoke with really liked this as well.3. Muscle inhibition. This was a big one. We talk a lot about getting players to perform the right movements, but not very much about how we need to turn off the right muscles as well. Look at a player performing a faulty movement. Is it that they can’t activate the right muscle, or that they can’t deactivate the right muscle? Probably a combination of both. And if the muscle that needs to be deactivated is stuck in an ingrained pattern, we might have problems. You can floor the accelerator all day long, but if the brakes are on, how far is the car going?4. You’ve got a fan in me, Cleveland Indians. The Cleveland Indians hosted the course at their development center in Goodyear. The facility is awesome and the staff was very forward thinking and excited to learn. They fed us some pretty good chow both days of the course. Well done Cleveland.Should you take the course? Absolutely! I loved it. I will say that you need to know your kinesiology pretty darn well. There were a lot of credentials in the room if you know what I mean. I learned a lot and can’t wait to start applying this stuff. I honestly may take the course again. The course materials are awesome. We went through how to assess and tons of exercises for helping athletes. Speaking of exercises, let me end this piece with another story. On the second day we went through how to perform and coach the exercises. I was getting coached by another attendee through one exercise that I didn’t find terribly difficult. Allen came over and made a few adjustments. Then he instructed the class to sit down and watch him demo the exercise with me. After some coaching to finally get me into the proper position, Allen turns and says to the class, “At this point, Jerry is dying.” He was right. And we were only on the second part of a five progression exercise. This stuff is legit. And I regret sitting front-and-center.